


Let Me Stay

by PrinceofHellebore (PrinceofPlants)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depictions of grief, Grief, Infection, M/M, No Beta, Suicidal Intentions, blue veins, slightly more hopeful second chapter, unrepentantly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofPlants/pseuds/PrinceofHellebore
Summary: “Wilde,” Zolf’s voice was bewildered, “What’s wrong?”Zolf had to go away, he had to convince him to leave, for his own safety, and selfishly he couldn’t muster any will at all to affect that.  Oscar stood, still shirtless and turned.  He met Zolf’s gaze and with a hand gestured to the blue veins at his hip.
Relationships: Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	1. Let me Stay

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty heckin sad. This was conceived as a whole piece but I liked the turn to happen across a chapter break. If you love agony stop at chapter one, if you want something a little less unrelentingly depressing carry on. Please let me know if you think this should be tagged differently or with additional warnings/tags. Please forgive any mistakes, I could only read this so many times in a sitting.

Oscar was alone in the room of the communal house; he had slept late again. It had been a long time since he felt he could have that luxury. He could barely put a name to how he felt… _rested? He hadn’t felt rested in… it must be years. And content…_ It was an unfamiliar state of being. The problems they were trying to solve, the desperation of their mission, was still present in his mind but he’d finally been able to set it down and take a breath and rest. Oscar knew that they would be able to turn back to the work all the better for the sanctuary they’d been offered. That and Zolf had threatened him thoroughly if he was caught reading anything more demanding of him than a Cambell novel, and for once Oscar had listened. Oscar smiled thinking of Zolf, protective and kind and patient. He was filled with warmth, no… love for the dwarf. It was such a different thing from what he was used to but unmistakable for what it was nonetheless.

Oscar rose from the bed and stretched. He appreciated the beds here too, much longer than the ones on the ship. He collected fresh clothing from the trunk that had been brought from the ship for him. There was a mirror too now, propped on the table. He hardly needed it now that he could adjust his appearance at will, but it was nice to check his handiwork sometimes. He pulled his nightshirt off, his skin prickling in the cool and picked up the fresh one to don it. As he did so he caught an unusual mark, bluish, in the mirror as he turned. He froze and swallowed. He lowered his gaze to his hip. Veins, thicker and darker than his own sat just below his skin like exposed tree roots. They were blue, that unmistakable blue that shone oily and slightly metallic.

Oscar took a shaky breath. _How?_ Somehow they had made a mistake, they’d thought they understood, at least enough to protect themselves but clearly not. _Well, there was nothing for it._ Oscar’s hands shook, as he turned back to his trunk. He’d prepared for this moment. He lifted from a hidden fold of the lining a small packet. He thought it more likely he'd have used it on a companion but.. He dumped it, spilling some portion, over last night’s glass. There was liquid still, a couple mouthfuls, probably not enough to hide the bitterness of the poison but that was unnecessary. He knew what he was doing, he knew why and he wasn’t fighting. His lip trembled holding the glass. It was raised halfway to his mouth before he recognized the ribbons of hot tears trailing down his cheeks. He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye before. It was the only indulgence and delay he dared take. He didn’t know when his will would bend to whatever invading force the veins heralded but he’d inevitably fall. But he could take a moment.

Oscar set the glass back on the table and turned to a blank piece of paper and cleaned the nib of his pen. His hand laid against the page and he thought of it brushing against Zolf’s hand and when he laid the pen tip down he couldn’t draw it into a word. There was too much to say, and no combination could ever be a comfort enough. Not to those receiving and not to him writing it. Not for Zolf, who had already lost him once. Not for him who had already been taken once. 

More tears fell down his face, faster, hotter, they fell on the page, warping it in blotches. He was holding back from sobbing, and it wasn’t sadness that filled his breast but fury, outrage. He was overwhelmed by the same unfairness that he’d felt when his magic had been taken. 

“Wilde.”

Oscar hadn’t heard the door open. He turned away, scrubbed a hand across his face. “Hey Zolf, I’m up, be out in…” but he couldn’t finish that lie knowing what Zolf would have to come back to.

There was a moment and the door shut. Oscar took a breath, it was unsteady, sucked in against everything fighting to seize up with crying.

“Wilde,” Zolf’s voice was bewildered, “What’s wrong?”

Zolf had to go away, he had to convince him to leave, for his own safety, and selfishly he couldn’t muster any will at all to affect that. Oscar stood, still shirtless and turned. He met Zolf’s gaze and with a hand gestured to the mark at his hip.

Zolf felt like the floor was dropping out from beneath him. They had thought they were safe. “How?” It came out as a quiet, betrayed syllable. 

“I don’t know. I don’t understand. But it’s there. And…” Wilde gestured, half a shrug. His hand came down onto a glass that had been left the night before. His fingers formed a dome over the rim. 

“It can’t…” Zolf felt tears gather at his eyes, hot and sharp as pins. They burned down his cheeks.

Wilde looked like he had been crying though he wasn’t now. His face was pink and his eyes slightly puffy. His lip trembled and his hands had a tremor as he held himself very still. “We both know what has to happen.” He hesitated, “I can do it… but I rather you leave.” A finger tapped on the glass, an unconscious gesture but Zolf understood.

“I can’t leave. I promised…” Zolf took a step forward before stopping himself.

Wilde stepped back just as quickly, though a hand raised, held first as if to accept an outstretched hand and then twisting as a gesture to stop. They stood there for a moment and Wilde’s jaw clenched and unclenched a few times. When he spoke his voice was held ruthlessly steady despite the pain clear in his eyes. “It’s not kind, to make me watch you suffer that.”

“And you shouldn’t be alone.” Zolf protested. “Part of the promise was that a friend would be there.”

“And we all imagined it would be a fight. The idea was that the person infected wouldn’t be a friend anymore.”

Zolf shook his head. They’d been through too much for this. But of course that wasn’t how the world worked. There wasn’t fairness or even-handedness. They’d known they were fighting against something that was so much bigger than them that realistically they had no hope of prevailing. But he’d hoped anyway and mostly he’d hoped because of Wilde. 

“I have something, it won’t hurt.” Wilde said. “But you have to go because I can’t stand that I can’t hold your hand.”

“No.” Zolf said, flatly. “This… I’m not willing to give up here. We didn’t have choices before but we do now.”

“Nothing’s changed. You can chain me, hold me, but I am a risk to all of you, I’m a risk to the mission. The moment I fall… everything in my head goes to them, including where we are and where we are going and what we plan.”

Zolf broke. He turned from Wilde his hands rising to cover his face as he wept. Sobs shook him. There was no argument against that. And part of him wanted to forsake their mission and just, run, or stay here and let the world fall, they might both be dead of old age before trouble came so far into the wilds. He thought he would turn aside if Wilde asked it. He didn’t try to calm his crying, he just waited it out. 

Wilde hadn’t moved when Zolf was finally able to look at him again, but tears ran down his cheeks now. It almost set Zolf off again. “Let me stay.” 

Wilde nodded and raised the glass.


	2. Wait

Oscar brought the glass to his mouth and tipped it slowly. Zolf took a breath, “Wait, stop.” Liquor lapped against his lips. “Something is… this isn’t how we’ve ever seen this go. People come back and they aren’t themselves, they are hollowed out, not in ways you can tell. But… they are wrong and then they get the veins.”

Oscar lowered the glass, it was going to be so much harder to bring it back up after this protest and delay. He looked at Zolf, and saw him fighting, hoping. His chest tightened.

“You’re whole,” Zolf’s eyes were wet again, pleading, “you aren’t guessing at what you would say, you’re not remembering or acting out how you think you’d feel. You are feeling.”

Oscar had been acting for so long that he wasn’t sure he knew the difference anymore. But he wanted to trust that Zolf could. “Can you really be sure?”

“Even that… you’ve been looking at this shrewdly and doubting and mistrusting and I’ve watched you every moment for months. And that was as genuine as anything I’ve ever seen.”

“We don’t know how this works, I might slip any moment, I don’t imagine it’s a spell I can resist long once it really starts.”

“Then resist for as long as you can, and maybe we can find a cure before…”

Oscar frowned and peered down into the glass. The imperfectly dissolved poison swirled as his shaking hand agitated the liquor. It was the first question he had asked: _How? How could this be possible? Perhaps this_ was _different…_ and he’d had some hope that Svalbard would hold the secret to a reversal. “Zolf,” he said, his heart breaking again, “we can’t risk that.”

“I’m not giving up hoping for a different answer.” The words grated out. Oscar heard that same fury he had felt, that outrage at the cruelty of this fate finding them after they’d only just found each other. After everything else. 

“I want a different choice too, but we can’t just hope there is one and give up everything else.”

“I’d give up a lot to not lose you again.” Zolf’s voice had gone small. Oscar understood that admission, the selfishness behind it that Zolf was admitting if only to him.

“We don’t know what that price is and we can’t ask everyone else to pay it with you.” It felt cruel saying that to him, _but gods_ Oscar felt the same… “Zolf if it was just you and I…”

“So we ask them.” Zolf looked at him defiantly, daring him to argue when it was what Oscar had unintentionally implied.

“You think they’re capable of being rational about this?”

“I’m not looking for a rational answer, Wilde, I’m looking for an answer I can survive.”

Oscar closed his eyes briefly, “Ask then, I’ll wait.” At least until he was sure he was lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading,  
> Love,  
> Prince of Hellebore


End file.
